


"you probably smell better than most of the women in this school"

by orphan_account



Series: Gerard Has The Cutest Classes In The Whole School [1]
Category: All Time Low, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Set It Off (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Artist Gerard Way, Asexuality, Cody Carson is a Clueless Freshmen, Drawing, I Don't Even Know, Not really though, Ray Is A Shit TA, Zack Is An Artist, art class, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 13:23:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6053170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gerard gets his arm painted, Zack has a boy problem (kind of but not really), and Cody is the only one taking this class seriously. Also Ray is a shit TA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"you probably smell better than most of the women in this school"

The cool touch of paint traced on his arms tickled, and the dull scratching of the sharpies against the walls of his advanced art classroom was relaxing enough to almost send him to sleep. Amy had requested to be the one to paint his arms today, a warm Tuesday afternoon. The paint wouldn't come off until the next Tuesday, the collection growing as each student added a little doodle. 

Amy had requested he closed his eyes, and, once he had, began painting, the strokes of the brush stretching from right above his wrist to just below his elbow. He was sure it would be one of his better 'tattoos'; Amy was amazingly talented and inspired, despite her insistence that she was a terrible artist. While she painted Gerard listened to the other kids around the room, the highschoolers murmuring quietly as they drew and painted on any available surface of the classroom they could find. He had soft, classical music playing from his speakers just loud enough to block out the specific conversations, most kids were focused on the drawing they were either completing or starting.

His favorite piece decorating the walls was the mural stretching the whole of the wall behind his desk, a large dragon swooping low over a settlement, depicted from miles above. Gerard had spent the whole summer drawing it, and, for the first month of school, the kids had painted it. 

"Mr. Way," Amy called, tapping his hand with the end of her brush, "I'm done."

Gerard opened his eyes curiously, gazing down at his left arm. There were long strokes of purple, dark blue and magenta swirling across his skin, with little spaces in between like stars in the night sky. 

"This is great Amy," Gerard said, turning his head to smile at the sophomore.

The girl hid her face behind her turquoise hair, smiling shyly, "thanks Mr. Way."

Gerard smiled and stood, walking over to his students to see how they where doing with the wall the right of the mural. Zack was sitting in the corner drawing two life size figures standing back to back, one with blue hair very similar to Amy's and another with a strip of blonde through his brown hair. Gerard sat down beside him and just watched Zack paint, occasionally glancing down the wall to see galaxies forming, cobras rearing, and whales breaching.

The bell's ringing surprised everybody, sending his students scrambling for their bags and personal supplies as they bid Gerard a speedy goodbye, near running out of the classroom. With a playful sigh Gerard glared at the mess his fifth period had left behind. At least he had a free period to clean up.

When all the paints where shelved and his TA Ray arrived Gerard just shooed him away, telling him to 'find something to do while I paint, Fro,' to which Ray just rolled his eyes and retreated to the supplies closet, where he would spend his time acting like he was organizing when he was really just texting Gerard's brother (Ray's best friend) stupid jokes.

Gerard was ok with that, because it lent him the peace and quiet he loved to paint in. Admittedly, that day he never got around to painting, but still, it was one up from a rowdy class.

There was a knock on his door before one of his students let himself in, it was Zack.

"Hey, Mr. Way," the boy muttered slipping into the desk closest to Gerard's, "can I ask you something?"

"Ask away Zack," Gerard smiled, his bright red hair flopping into his face comically.

"Well," he checked over his shoulder to glance at the painting he had been working the last class period, "say, a friend of mine told me they were asexual, what would that mean?"

Gerard tried to think of an easy analogy to use, it definitely wasn't an easy term to explain.

"Basically, Zack, say you were looking at something like an apple, yeah?"

Zack nodded along, clearly confused but trying to follow along.

"You wouldn't want to have sex with the apple. It's kind of like that, sure things might be aesthetically pleasing or you might fall in love with it but you don't really feel that 'let's have sex' attraction. It's a whole lot more complex than that for most people but that's the gist of it." 

Zack looked like he was still still a bit confused but his eyes cleared a little bit.

"Like if I really like how a peanut looked but I don't want to eat it, no matter what, like ever, no matter how much there is or how it's designed?"

Gerard smiled, "pretty much, but I think you're better of searching Tumblr than asking your smelly old art teacher," he advised, with a small laugh.

Zack started out the door, but not before waving goodbye to Mr. Way, "your not smelly Mr. Way, actually you probably smell better than most of the women in this school."

As soon as the door was closed Ray walked out, still on his phone. Without looking up from his texting he smirked in the general direction of Gerard.

"He was talking about Rian Dawson, that one kid from your first period. Mikey told me, he said Mr. Wentz told him."

Gerard rolled his eyes. "I know my own students Ray. And you need to remind me to tell Pete to stop flirting with my brother, he's underaged."

Ray shrugged, "Nah, Mikey would kill me if I actually ever reminded you of anything."

Minutes later Gerard had to get ready for his next class, getting out the paper for his baby drawing 1's.

As soon as the bell rang and the students had all shuffled into the room Gerard set them to work with finding a style. It didn't matter what they made as long as it was their own thing. 

While he paced the rows of tables he saw a lot of bullshitting, mainly kids who were only taking art so they could get an easy check for 'fine arts' on their applications for scholarships. There were a few drawings that seemed authentic, all of whom the artist seemed pretty seasoned.

Finally he got to the back of the room, where a freshman was staring at his paper so hard it looked like it was about to set fire, pencil not moving. Gerard approached from in front of him smiling softly and crouched down a bit to get a better look at what the kid was up to. There wasn't anything on his paper except eraser crumbs.

He quickly checked the seating chart he had memorized for the kids name.

"Having some trouble, Cody?"

The kid sighed and mumbled a small, 'yeah,' while fixing his glasses.

"Ok, so look at my walls," Gerard pointed out a few paintings and drawings, the most unique ones out of the lot.

Finally he stopped at Zack's of the skunk guy and blue guy.

"This person used a more cartoon-ish approach," he directed his finger to another drawing, "this one's figures are a bit slimmer and taller than they would be realistically, and this last one has a more abstract vibe."

Gerard pulled a small slip of paper from his pocket and started drawing quickly on the back.

Minutes later he showed Cody a quick sketch of him, but a bit darker and much more threatening.

"See mine is a bit angular and dark you can say, why don't you try drawing a jaw, and then a nose, and see where it goes from there, ok?"

Cody sent him a wide smile before lowering his head, mouth twisting as he concentrated on the lines he drew.

The form was a bit rusty, with a diporportionate feel that could only be eradicated with practice, but it was definitely unique, and definitely really good.

So Gerard sat down next to Cody and pulled out a piece of paper for himself, drawing as he wished while keeping one eye on his students.


End file.
